Sylvester Stallone Teases ‘Rambo 5’ Shooting Start

Sylvester Stallone is gearing up for an imminent return to Rambo.

“Starting soon and getting very excited,” Stallone wrote on Instagram Monday with a photo from 2008’s Rambo. “The world may be changing but not him. Nothing is over.”

Shooting on the project will get underway sometime this month, again partnering Stallone with Expendables producer Avi Lerner. Spain and the Spanish Canary Islands previously emerged as reported shooting locations.

Adrian Grunberg, who directed the Mel Gibson action flick Get the Gringo, steps behind the camera for the latest — and likely last — entry in the long-running franchise launched with 1982’s First Blood. Stallone co-wrote the script and reprises his role as the machine gun-toting warrior who will next take on the Mexican cartel and a dangerous crime lord.

Rambo, now retired and living a humble life as a ranch worker in Arizona, is drawn into another bloody fight when a longtime family friend reports her granddaughter has gone missing. He teams with an investigative journalist — whose half-sister has been snatched — to track down and rescue a group of girls kidnapped by a notorious Mexican sex trafficking ring.

Stallone, now 72, last revived the character in 2008’s Rambo, the 20-years-later sequel to Rambo III. That installment was scripted and directed by Stallone, who will again reprise his most famed role of battered boxer Rocky Balboa this Thanksgiving in Creed II after stepping back into that role for the first time in nine years after his Rocky franchise sendoff in 2006.

The actor-writer-director hasn’t stepped back behind the camera since 2010’s franchise-launching The Expendables, where he teamed with a cache of action stars like Jason Statham and Jet Li. Franchise co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger said last April he’s interested in reprising his role as Trench in a potential Expendables 4, but only if Stallone is involved.

Stallone is attached to next direct and star alongside Star Wars actor Adam Driver in drama Tough as They Come, an adaptation of the best-selling Travis Mills memoir about a U.S. Army Staff Sgt. who is just one of five soldiers to ever survive a quadruple amputation from a battlefield injury.

Rambo 5 has yet to stake out a release date. The project is being prepped for a late 2019 debut.